June 



E 22, l! 



!-J 



SCIENCE. 



295 



late Prof. Fr. D'iez was of different opinion. He thought that Ital- 

 ian was that Romance language which formed the nearest approach 

 to Old Latin. But there is no doubt that Spanish and Portuguese 

 show considerable repugnance against the sound /, and that the 

 double pronunciation of r in Spanish and Portuguese is identical 

 with the one we find in Basque. Gerland also proposes the query, 

 whether the softened /, «, n, so frequent in Basque, have caused the 

 softening of / and n into // and h of Spanish as well as of Portu- 

 guese, or whether this must be ascribed to other causes. 



THE GREAT MARCH BLIZZARD. 



The great storm off the Atlantic coast of the United States of 

 March 11-14 will probably go into history as the most severe ex- 

 perienced since this country has been inhabited by Europeans. Not 

 only was it remarkable for its force and duration, but also for the 

 unexpected manner of its appearance and development, and for the 

 track it followed from the time it was first observed to that of its 

 final disappearance. 



No previous great storm at sea has been as thoroughly studied 

 from such abundance of data as this very fortunately has been. 

 From the time that the first vessel arrived in port which had en- 

 countered the storm at sea, to the present, the Hydrographic Office 

 of the Navy Department has been collecting, arranging, and com- 

 paring all the reports in regard to it that have been received, 

 and will soon publish a monograph giving a history of the great 

 disturbance, illustrated by a number of carefully prepared maps and 

 charts. Mr. Everett Hayden, who has had charge of the work, in 

 a paper recently read before the National Geographic Society, gave 

 the substance of what this monograph will contain. The following 

 is an abstract of his paper. 



Mr. Hayden began by referring briefly to the difficulties and de- 

 lays that necessarily attend the collection of data by which to study 

 the character and progress of a great ocean-storm, and illustrated 

 these by stating the fact that a ship which recently arrived at New 

 York from Calcutta supplied very valuable facts regarding one of 

 the great hurricanes of August last, from a region to the westward 

 of the Cape Verde Islands, where data were especially needed. 



Four large colored charts were used to illustrate the meteorologi- 

 cal conditions over the area charted (latitude 25° to 5° north, lon- 

 gitude 50° to 85° west) at 7 A.M., 75th meridian time, March 11, 

 12, 13, and 14 respectively. These charts contained isobars for 

 each tenth of an inch, reduced pressure, and isotherms for each 

 10" F.; temperatures above freezing, in a tint of varying intensity of 

 red ; and below freezing, of blue. A large track-chart with ves- 

 sels' positions and tracks enabled the audience more clearly to fol- 

 low the discussion and the storm-reports which were quoted. A 

 barometer diagram illustrated the fluctuations of the barometer at 

 six land-stations and on board six vessels, selected with special refer- 

 ence to the completeness of their data, and their position relative 

 to the storm. Diagrams were prepared, also, to show the varying 

 height of the barometer along north-and-south sections, selected to 

 emphasize the fact that the special feature of the storm was its 

 trough-like form, the isobars about the area of low barometer 

 being elliptical in shape, along a north-and-south line, and moving 

 eastward between two ridges of high barometer. 



The synchronous weather-charts were discussed successively. 

 The first, that for 7 A.JI., March 1 1, showed a trough of low barome- 

 ter reaching from the Gulf far northward, past the eastern shore of 

 Lake Huron, toward the southern limits of Hudson Bay. Off the 

 coast a ridge of high barometer stretched down from the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence toward Santo Domingo, passing about midway be- 

 tween the Bermudas and Cape Hatteras. To the westward an- 

 other ridge of high barometer extended from Dakota to below the Rio 

 Grande. Along the coast the prevailing winds were therefore east- 

 erly and south-westerly ; the warm, moist air drawn up from down 

 within the tropics ca:using a warm wave, with generally cloudy 

 weather and rain. In rear of the line of low barometer, a cold, 

 north-westerly wind was blowing, carrying a cold wave far down 

 into the Gulf, with frosts as far south as Louisiana and Mississippi, 

 and cool northerly winds clear down to Vera Cruz. 



Before considering the next chart, a description was given of 

 the meteorological conditions off the coast, awaiting the advance 



of this long line of cold north-westerly gales, which was moving 

 eastward at the rate of about six hundred miles a day. Attention 

 was also called to the importance of considering, in this connec- 

 tion, the vitally important influence of the great warm ocean-cur- 

 rent, the Gulf Stream, in increasing the energy of storms when 

 they reach the coast. By way of more vividly illustrating the en- 

 ergy of action developed when cold winds blow over it, mention 

 was made of the many water-spouts reported off the coast the last 

 few months, and a few of those reports were quoted. It was 

 shown, also, that the surface temperature in the axis of the Gulf 

 Stream off Hatteras was as high as 76°, while that of the cold in- 

 shore current was fully 30° lower. 



The storm was then followed as it approached the coast, its ■ 

 energy increasing every hour, and the barometric depression deep- 

 ening. At 3 P.M., one centre, with pressure as low as 29.7, had 

 just passed the coast south of Hatteras ; while another, with press- 

 ure quite as low, or lower, was central over the Province of Onta- 

 rio. Although the general trough-like form of the storm remained, 

 as clearly indicated by reports from vessels all along the coast, yet 

 another secondary storm-centre, and one of very great energy, 

 formed offshore, north of Hatteras, as soon as the line had passed 

 the coast. It was this centre, in violence fully equal to a tropical 

 hurricane, and rendered still more dangerous by the freezing 

 weather and blinding snow, which raged with such fury off Sandy 

 Hook and Block Island for two days, — days likely to be long 

 memorable along the coast. Its long continuance was probably 

 due to the retardation of the centre of the line in its eastward mo- 

 tion, by the areas of high barometer about Newfoundland ; so that 

 this storm-centre delayed between Block Island and Nantucket, 

 while the northern and southern flanks of the line swung around 

 to the eastward, the advance of the lower one gradually cutting off 

 the supply of warm, moist air rushing up from lower latitudes into 

 contact with the cold north-westerly gale sweeping down from off 

 the coast between Hatteras and Nantucket. 



So far as the ocean is concerned, the night of the iith-i2th saw 

 the great storm at its maximum, and its great extent and terrific 

 violence make it to be one of the most severe ever experienced off 

 our coast. Only a few corrected barometric readings were lower 

 than 29, and the lowest pressure was probably not lower than 28.9, 

 although lower readings were observed a few days later off the 

 Grand Banks. 



The chart for 7 A.M., March 12, showed the line or trough with 

 isobars closely crowded together southward of Block Island, but 

 still of a general elliptical shape, the lower portion of the line swing- 

 ing eastward toward Bermuda, and carrying with it violent squalls 

 of snow and hail far below the 35th parallel. The high land of 

 Cuba and Santo Domingo prevented its effects from reaching the 

 Caribbean Sea, although it was distinctly noticed by a vessel south 

 of Cape Maysi, in the Windward Channel. The isotherm of 33° 

 reached from central Georgia to the coast below Norfolk, and 

 thence out into the Atlantic to a point about one hundred miles 

 south of Block Island. Farther north, it ran inshore of Cape Cod, 

 explaining the fact that so little snow, comparatively, fell in Rhode 

 Island and south-eastern Massachusetts. 



By next morning the storm was beginning to decrease in sever- 

 ity ; and the chart shows that westerly winds and low tempera- 

 tures had spread over a wide tract of ocean below the 40th paral- 

 lel, while over the ocean north of that parallel the prevailing winds 

 were easterly. The lower storm-centre was now in about latitude 

 40° north, longitude 39° west, with a pressure of 29.30 ; and the 

 other a little distance south of a line from Nantucket to Block 

 Island, barometer 29, the isobars extending in a general easterly and 

 westerly direction. The delay of the storm off the coast, and its 

 rapid increase of energy, had been shown in the most marked man- 

 ner by the fluctuations of the barometer at land-stations and 

 aboard vessels, and the barometer diagram was referred to by way 

 of illustration. 



March 14 the storm off Block Island had almost died away, with 

 light variable winds and occasional snow-squalls ; the other centre 

 was about two hundred miles south-east from Sable Island. The 

 great wave of low barometer had overspread the entire western 

 portion of the North Atlantic, with unsettled, squally weather from 

 Labrador to the Windward Islands. The area of high pressure in 



